


Four Darks In Red

by Squashers



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Mentions of Rick Macy, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 23:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2365991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squashers/pseuds/Squashers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s dangerous for an artist to show his piece to the world. It’s dangerous to let other people see how you feel. It is dangerous to let them stand centimeters from your heart and do with it what they may. One smile, one hug, one dollop of yellow does not happiness make. He's entertained the idea before now, but now he knows that this is the best possible decision. "One day, you'll get away, you'll be free," Rick told him. There's only one way to escape all of this.</p><p>The last hours of Kieren's life, up to his death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Darks In Red

**Author's Note:**

> Emma [official-clintbarton](http://official-clintbarton.tumblr.com/) said she wanted to write Kieren's last hours. I said I wanted to as well, so this is for her.  
> The title is a reference to [this painting](http://www.markrothko.org/four-darks-in-red/) by Mark Rothko.  
> Extreme trigger warning: graphic descriptions of suicide and self-harm.

He is exhausted. He is exhausted, and yet he continues wandering like he has been for two days now, traipsing back and forth through the fields and woods. He doesn't venture back into town for food; his appetite left him months ago. His whole body has stopped working; he's on edge, shaking without feeling movement, panting without catching a breath, his head is stuffed numb with angry fog. He keeps walking. Maybe if he walks until he collapses he'll be able to sleep without nightmares for once. Maybe he'll be able to sleep without thoughts of 'my fault my fault' running through his head. Maybe he'll be able to sleep without waking with fear in his veins and tears clogging his throat. Maybe he'll be able to sleep at all.

Kieren comes back to the cave on the third day. He's avoided its darkness before now; there are too many echoes of moments passed in here, but he feels so tired, so tired and numb to every sound or sight or memory and he just needs to stop. He lights some of the candles he and Rick set up months ago, just enough so he can see to shift into a more comfortable position. The cave wall cuts into his back as he pulls his knees up to his chest, but this vague decision that's slowly coming to the forefront of his mind has dulled him of all sensation.

When deer are frightened they freeze, they lock up, they're numb with terror when the car or the bullet crashes into them; they feel nothing but cold dread. Dread has been Kieren's coat for years. He shrugs it on in the morning and muffles the panic attack the front door gives him with the back of his hand. It closes up to his chin at school, where he tenses in the halls, always ready for a fist or a foot or an insult, where he hunches over his food in the corner of the cafeteria, unable to eat for knowing that he'll only vomit it up in an hour when the anxiety pulsing in his chest squeezes too hard at thought of sitting through class. The dread tightens in the sleeves when he sees the older boys as he's walking home and he keeps his head down, wishing their insults would bounce right off the back of his head like a spitball instead of sinking down into the pit of his stomach and settling there to wait. It curls around him at night in place of a blanket, sharing a bed with him despite his attempts to make his room the only safety he can find. The cold dread has been his companion for too long, and now it's tightening around him and confining him with the threads it has sewn into his skin.

He doesn't look at the opposite wall. He pretends the lie isn't there. He tries to pretend. He's always been terrible at pretending.

It's been hours. Maybe days. He's not sure. He only knows he stared at the wall while the light was bright and then it faded and now it's coming back again. He thinks maybe his body should hurt, maybe his legs should be sore from not moving, but he feels nothing. His body is nothing.

The idea had come to him months before. Before. There are too many Befores now. Before, they were only momentary flashes of strange notions, ideas he wasn't sure he was supposed to think. A moment of wondering whether jumping from this bridge might kill him, a moment in the bath entertaining the thought of bringing the toaster up for a dip, a moment while cleaning when the bleach almost smells inviting. Before, the thought had come to him only vaguely, but he'd pushed it away. Rick would hate it in the military. It would remind him too much of what he said he wanted to get away from. Did he want to get away from it? Sometimes Kieren didn't know. In any case, Rick would come home soon. He would. So it was an idea that he stuffed in his back pocket for later along with his pocket knife and spare change, a just in case.

It's the reason he'd walked out the door only days ago, a notion so vague it had no destination until he was too exhausted to keep moving. And now it solidifies as he sits, his mind becoming clearer as he realizes there is no better option, no other option.

Rick is gone. Rick is gone, but it's more than that. It's so much more. He can't go to school now, not without the knowledge that Rick will be with him, that he'll be encouraging him and joking with him and holding him together. He can't leave the town, knowing anywhere else will be just the same. The words flung so violently at him in school and in the street were softened by the existence of Rick and his reassurances afterward. The sneers and glares from the people of Roarton were deflected by Rick's answering glare, his protective arm over Kieren's shoulder. It had started long before he'd realized he was gay. He was just too different. Somehow he'd pulled himself the marked slip before he'd even begun to understand its meaning. Kieren was already cracked in so many places, already shaking with his own self-made fear and burying himself in his own sadness. Rick had held him steady, dug him up and smiled at him in that lopsided way and told him "Just wait till you can escape this town one day. You'll get out and you'll be free from all of this."

Free. Free from all of this. He's so tired. Exhaustion isn't a deep enough word. Stress isn't tense enough. Grief not stabbing enough. Normal sadness doesn't throb and ache like this. Guilt doesn't stopper the lungs and freeze the heart and bleed energy from every muscle like this. Fear has lodged itself so deep within his bones he's not sure there's a word big enough for it. Every molecule in his body is screaming.

Free from it all. For all this to finally leave him. For him to finally leave all this.

Because that's all he can do, escape this. It won't end, it never ends. It's always there, pounding at his brain. You don't belong here, fairy boy. Loser, loner, coward. Why don't you just die, little faggot. Crybaby. Why you wearin' that stupid jacket? You want us to kick your teeth in? Fucking cocksucker. Why are you scared? Don't be scared. Stop it. You brought this on yourself, you know. If you only stopped dressing like that, stopped drawing pretty boys in your sketchbooks, stopped being an artist, stopped being _you_ , they wouldn't beat you up anymore or fling words like knives at your head. You deserve it. Just think positive and you'll be happy again, you'll see. It's all in your head. You won't be entering my house anymore, fucking fag! Come near my pub again and I'll kill you! Do you take it up the ass? I bet you take it up the ass, don't you, fucking ponce! Why does your family tolerate you? How could Jem even talk to you, you're so annoying. How can anyone look at your disgusting little face, you can't even look at yourself in the mirror. You can't be an artist, what kind of shite is that? You'll end up dead in a gutter in London in three days, talentless piece of shit you are. The future means nothing if you're only going to ruin it with your pointless existence. Worthless, loser, incapable, stupid, freak, useless, failure, nothing nothing nothing. It's your fault, it's your fault. You scared him off, you wanted him to come with you. You wanted him to love you more than he could. He ran away because of you. He left because of you. He's dead because of you. You're pathetic, you're less than nothing. Why are you even here? You can't contribute anything to this world. What are you doing with your existence? Taking up space. Hurting other people. Being a nuisance. Useless piece of trash. They know. They all know what you are when they look at you. They see it and they say it, they're not afraid to tell you what you are. They don't care. They know you shouldn't be here. They wouldn't miss you if you left. They'd be happy, they'd be better off. Everyone would. You don't belong here. You shouldn't even bother to exist when all you do is fuck everything up. It's not like you ever mattered. It's your fault he's gone, you deserve every word and every punch you get. You deserve every ounce of pain. It's your fault, and you don't even belong here. You shouldn't even be here. You're pathetic. You don't deserve to exist.

It's so _loud_. The world, his mind, all of it. All these people bred to face in the same direction, think the same thoughts, glare the same suspicious glares, whisper the same ignorant prayers into their steepled hands. He came backwards into the world and walks with a crooked gait, facing the wrong way, thinking thoughts that are far too different. The arched roof of the church was always too dark and silent for Kieren to believe in god. He only ever saw Van Gogh when he looked at the sky. Van Gogh swallowed yellow paint because he thought it would make him happy, even though it was poisonous. Kieren drank lemonade every day for a year. All he got for it was a cavity, a trip to the dentist, a shove into the lockers when he got back to school after the appointment. The little things don't work. One smile, one hug, one dollop of yellow does not happiness make. Every word and glare and whisper and shove still bruises him and screams in his mind, every thought of self-loathing lands a bone-shattering punch, a shuddering throb under his skin, a sinister tinnitus that won't ever let up. It's too loud, too _loud_ , all the anger and hate, he can't take it.

It has to stop. He needs it to stop. Every cell in his body weighs a thousand pounds, he can feel pieces of himself breaking off and dropping to the ground at every movement. He feels like he's being shredded and pulled apart and crushed to pieces, like his guts have been grabbed and twisted by some massive hand. Maybe this what it feels like in the vacuum of outer space, that dark empty somewhere between life and death. God, it's too much.

The swiss army knife is a solid weight in his hand, unfamiliar and distant and rarely used. He stares at the glossy red outer design, such a simple mask that hides so much usefulness. Potential he never had. The blade, when he opens it, is fine and gleaming and sharp. A thin ribbon of his own reflection shines back at him, distorted and broken as much by the metal as by his own mind. He hasn't looked at his own face in the mirror in years. He looks around the cave again and finds himself staring back up at the lie, the broken promise carved into the rock. Nothing is written in stone, and even vows etched in rock will break to pieces when they encounter a bomb.

Suddenly his mind feels very clear and awake; for the first time in months he's alert and aware of what he needs to do. He's entertained the idea before now, but now he knows that this is the best possible decision. There's only one way to escape all of this. There's only one way to rid his family of the burden of their defective, piece of shit son, and finally get away from this town and this life and this hatred forever. "You'll be free from all this," Rick's voice reminds him. Free.

It fucking hurts, pressing as hard as he can into the skin. He's right handed, and it's hard to cut deep enough with his left hand, but he's read somewhere that he'll still have more mobility in his dominant hand even after it's bleeding. He rakes the same straight line over and over, following the blue highway of veins up his arm, feeling the sharp sting and tear as the blade catches ragged on layers of already-cut skin and slices through the clean layers. For a moment, there is a point of sort of numb euphoria; the endorphins have kicked in, and he's cut deep enough that the nerves are confused, he's not sure if he's feeling pain or something else. It makes his stomach clench, a strange tingling reaction in his chest, a twist in his head like you get at the drop on a roller coaster, only smaller. It's amazing to be feeling something different from the monotonous scrape of fear and depression and self-loathing and guilt. Then with one more pass, the pain changes. It's not a euphoric incision anymore, now it's agonized lightning that slashes into him, forcing long-stagnant tears to his eyes and his breath to punch its way out of him with a small cry. He can't see where he's going anymore; the path is flooded with red. His arm is white-hot, blood pooling in the creases of his palms, drowning his lifeline, but he keeps going. He stops when the blood is a dark crimson instead of the bright cheerful red. He rests, but only for a moment.

Mark Rothko painted huge abstract paintings to envelop the viewer, to immerse them, to make them see what he felt. Pictures, he said, live and die by the eyes of the sensitive observer. It is cruel to send your art out into the world. It is cruel to let others see the things that you feel. To make art, you must have a clear preoccupation with death, and ten percent hope to make the tragic concept more endurable. It is dangerous to let the world look at you and interpret what it sees. It is dangerous to let them stand centimeters from your heart and do with it what they may. What happens when you can no longer mix together the colours of hope? When ten percent of the picture is missing? Rothko killed himself in front of his kitchen sink, blood staining the floor from dark to light and smeared back again to dark, a final piece: No. 302 (Red, Crimson on White).

The second cut is harder. Kieren's right hand is shaking, slippery with blood. He wipes his fingers on his jeans carelessly. He can feel his heart pounding in his ears, a rushing thud, anxiety-inducing, and he just wants it to shut up. He presses hard into the skin, pulls down, but his grip is sliding. He grits his teeth and digs at the cut, not going slow this time, not watching as the skin separates and opens up to reveal he's nothing but blood inside. This time he pushes down until the sting disappears, until the numb comes. It won't be enough. He drags toward his elbow, grunting, tearing apart the blue pathways that connect him too solidly with his own heart. Still not enough. His fingers are going limp on the knife. It's a last chance as he rips the blade upward, teeth gritted against a scream, and agony bursts to life under his skin as the knife slips sideways, tearing a new pathway, and crimson bubbles thickly over, his own final piece. Another Darks in Red. He lets the swiss army knife clatter away to his side.

Now is when most people would start to regret it, realizing well maybe it is all fixable, maybe it wasn't the best decision. Now is when most people would realize that the excruciating pain isn't worth it, that feeling this is worse than feeling the way they were before. Now is when most people would stagger up, away, scream for help until someone found them curled on the ground in the dirt, trying to catch their hopes from flowing out of their hands. Kieren feels none of that. This is what he wants.

He finds that dying is like some sort of horrible surrealist interrogation room, where you are sat alone in a knife-cold room with an ancient tape player, forced to listen to every mistake you've ever made, every thing that's wrong with you, every reason in the world for you to just leave. He is only too glad to feel the helpless ache in his chest dissolve when the recording fades into the tap-tap-tap of loose tape ends. He is nothing but painted lines of fear and depression, stretched huge and thin-spread on a canvas of red for the world to point at. Slash a knife through the center of a canvas and it becomes a different kind of art. Show the world how you feel and they will only tear it down, redo the brushstrokes and criticize the original until it's never going to be good enough, not ever again. Make one picture that doesn't mesh with the rest and they'll poke holes in you until your guilt is a length of rope and your depression, anxiety, fear, self-hatred are the knots, a circle just the perfect size for your neck.

It stops abruptly, the recording. The world and all his memories are loud, loud, _loud_ , and then suddenly-- not. For once it's quiet, and all he can hear is the rush of wind outside the cave, the occasional sound of owls calling. The all-consuming pain in his wrists has blended into a single haze that no longer makes sense to him. It's finally, finally over. His thoughts have dissolved into vague fuzziness, impressions of words carved into the wall, of angry voices fading away into silence. Someone splashes a can of black paint onto the red canvas. The world stutters, dims, slips sideways and then goes still. He closes his eyes to keep it from doing that again. For a moment, he can still think sluggishly through the darkness. The artist's hand brushes black smoothly over the dried crimson until there is nothing visible but nothing. His thoughts are nothing. The only thing left is the artist's tiny signature in the bottom right hand corner, the relief that it's finally over, he's finally leaving it all.


End file.
